Internet speed around campus slowed down for several hours Monday.

A “major fiber cable” was cut, resulting in the slowdown, said Walter Czerniak, Associate Vice President for NIU Information Technology Services. He was unsure of when the fiber would be repaired. In the past, Czerniak said similar repairs took several hours.

The slowdown affected students in various labs. Junior public health major Nathan Augustin said the WiFi on his iPod was working “fairly decently,” but the slow speed of Internet in the library labs was “definitely an inconvenience.” Sophomore undecided major Allie Brown said the Internet at her sorority was working, but the Internet in the library labs was not.

“It’s very unusually slow,” Brown said. “It’s taking five minutes to load a page.”

ITS has plans to prevent further slowdowns in the future. Czerniak said they will be implementing an alternate fiber route in late March.

“It would stop this from happening again,” Czerniak said.